Dale Partridge - Real Christianity #108： Did I Choose God or Did God Choose Me？

00:00:00.000 Welcome to this episode of Real Christianity. My name is Dale Partridge, where each week

00:00:13.120 I offer 15 to 20-minute answers to tough theological and pastoral questions. This is

00:00:19.100 a 100% listener-supported audio ministry of relearn.org. And for those who don't know,

00:00:25.720 our mission at relearn.org is to educate and equip ordinary Christians to plant biblical,

00:00:31.860 confessional, and missional house churches. For more information, just visit relearn.org

00:00:37.600 forward slash house. Well, guys, many Christians, I've noticed, interpret their testimony like this.

00:00:46.520 I was at a certain place and I heard the gospel. I accepted Jesus and now I'm a Christian.

00:00:53.160 But is that what really happened? Did you choose God, or did He, before the foundations of the world, choose you?

00:01:02.400 We're going to be unpacking this important discussion today on this episode, but before we begin, I just wanted to make two quick announcements.

00:01:10.220 The first one is, you've heard me talk about it before, St. Justin's, that's stjustins.org.

00:01:18.220 This is our online and in-person one-year seminary-grade training program for men to

00:01:28.560 plant biblical house churches. And we've seen so many people over the years who have gone into

00:01:36.640 ministry and planted a church or a house church, and without training, it can be incredibly

00:01:45.380 catastrophic relationally. So we really suggest that people get trained. We would never let a

00:01:54.460 doctor work on our bodies without training. We would never let an attorney work on our law case

00:02:01.620 without training. It's interesting how much of the church will allow pastors to work on their

00:02:07.180 hearts and souls without training. And we're not saying that you need to have a degree, but we

00:02:14.240 think that pastors need training. And the reason is because Jesus, he didn't just send his disciples

00:02:20.620 out on day one. No, he had three years of training before they were sent on mission. And so we have

00:02:29.180 developed a program for those that are interested in planting a biblical house church. And if you're

00:02:33.480 intimidated by that, but you feel called still, this is a great resource for you to check out.

00:02:39.920 Don't just start.

00:02:41.660 We've had so many situations that we've heard of and walked through even personally that

00:02:46.680 you go, oh man, that could have been avoided had I been trained on how to handle that theologically,

00:02:52.780 relationally.

00:02:54.160 So it's just a really great program.

00:02:55.640 If you're interested or you know somebody that's interested in planting a biblical house

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00:03:06.680 It's a little button that says seek more information.

00:03:09.180 The second thing is donations.

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00:04:06.740 you're also giving to your local church. But if you are blessed by what we're doing here at

00:04:11.560 relearn.org, we would love that. You could just go to relearn.org forward slash donate. Okay,

00:04:18.440 so today's question is from Tyler in Laredo, Texas. And he says, Pastor Dale, for many years,

00:04:25.920 I have believed that I chose God. But the more I read the Bible, the more I'm seeing that he

00:04:32.120 chose me. I know at the root, this is a conversation between predestination and

00:04:37.200 free will, but I would like to have a right understanding of my conversion. Can you help

00:04:43.120 me with this? Hey, Tyler, thank you for your question. And let me begin by explaining

00:04:49.740 why this question is actually so important. When we first encounter Christ, we view that

00:04:56.800 experience through our own eyes. In other words, we see it one-dimensionally. We see it solely from

00:05:04.820 the human perspective and not from God's perspective. Think of a dad running up to his son

00:05:12.040 and excitingly saying, do you want to go to the park today? And his son screams, yeah.

00:05:17.900 His son thinks that he just chose to go to the park. But every parent knows that the dad already

00:05:24.940 made that decision for him before he asked the son. They were going to the park regardless, right?

00:05:32.100 But again, the son only sees this interaction from his perspective. And in relationship to our

00:05:40.220 conversion to Christ, by God's grace, we soon find out that God doesn't just leave us with

00:05:47.100 our one-dimensional view, but he actually shares with us his perspective on our conversion by way

00:05:54.340 the scriptures and after a person is saved and begins to read more and more of god's word they

00:06:01.460 eventually bump into certain passages and begin to see that their conversion wasn't as one-dimensional

00:06:08.820 as they originally thought and eventually they say wait wait wait a second uh did i did i choose god

00:06:16.260 or or did god choose me and it sounds like that's what occurred here uh tyler in your life

00:06:24.120 So it's a good question.

00:06:26.320 So I want to preface my explanation with three verses.

00:06:30.680 Now, there are a lot more passages that we could discuss, but we have limited time, so

00:06:34.820 I chose these three.

00:06:36.040 So I'm going to read them off to you, back to back to back here.

00:06:39.540 Ephesians 1, 3 through 6 says,

00:06:42.500 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ

00:06:46.920 with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before

00:06:52.440 the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless before him in love he predestined

00:06:58.520 us for adoption to himself as sons through jesus christ according to the purpose of his will to the

00:07:04.120 praise of his glorious grace with which he has blessed us in the beloved that's first one john

00:07:10.600 john 6 44 jesus says no one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws him and i will raise

00:07:19.640 him up on the last day. And John 10, 24 through 29. So the Jews gathered around Jesus and said to

00:07:27.280 him, how long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly. Jesus answered

00:07:33.000 them, I told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my father's name bear witness

00:07:38.140 about me, but you do not believe because you are not among my sheep. My sheep hear my voice,

00:07:44.420 and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish.

00:07:49.640 and no one will snatch them out of my hand.

00:07:52.260 My father who has given them to me is greater than all

00:07:55.180 and no one is able to snatch them out of my father's hand.

00:07:58.160 I and the father are one.

00:08:01.040 Now, most people imagine evangelism like this.

00:08:06.220 A man is drowning in an ocean and he's gonna die.

00:08:10.900 A boat comes by with another man.

00:08:13.080 Let's call him the evangelist.

00:08:15.560 Who's saying to the drowning man,

00:08:17.860 you're gonna drown.

00:08:19.360 Grab this life preserver and you're going to live.

00:08:21.880 And the man in the water agrees, grabs the life preserver, which is Christ, or faith

00:08:27.160 in Christ, and the evangelist pulls him into the boat.

00:08:31.560 And metaphorically, this is what our conversion looks like from our one-dimensional perspective.

00:08:38.120 But let me explain what evangelism looks like from the Bible's perspective.

00:08:43.520 So first, let's look at Romans 3, 10 through 12, that tells us,

00:08:49.100 None is righteous. No, not one. No one understands. No one seeks for God.

00:08:55.860 All have turned aside. Together they have become worthless. No one does good, not even one.

00:09:02.840 And Ephesians 2, 1 through 3 adds to this by saying,

00:09:06.920 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked,

00:09:11.640 following the course of this world, following the prince and the power of the air,

00:09:16.180 the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience.

00:09:20.280 Okay, so the first major point is that nobody seeks God.

00:09:26.780 Nobody is interested in being saved.

00:09:31.740 We're spiritually dead in our trespasses and sins.

00:09:35.780 The word picture there is of like a man face down, dead in his own vomit and feces.

00:09:40.920 Okay, that's how dead we are spiritually.

00:09:46.320 It says we're also following the course of this world.

00:09:50.800 Imagine a river of dead corpses floating down toward a waterfall that empties into a volcano.

00:10:00.600 That's what sin has done to mankind spiritually.

00:10:06.820 Outside of Christ, we have no spiritual life left in us, no goodness left in us.

00:10:13.340 We don't seek God.

00:10:15.000 We don't do good things.

00:10:17.480 We are spiritually dead.

00:10:19.960 And people go, well, we still do good things, right?

00:10:22.600 Well, if you compare good things to what?

00:10:25.580 Your good things to what somebody else is doing?

00:10:29.840 Sure, it might be better than someone else is doing, considered morally speaking.

00:10:34.440 But when you consider what you're doing and compare it to a holy God, a perfect and holy God, it's like comparing a grain of rice to the sun.

00:10:45.600 And so let me explain this another way.

00:10:48.420 The Bible doesn't teach that you and I were treading water in that ocean looking to be saved.

00:10:55.520 The Bible teaches that you and I were dead on the bottom of the ocean floor already.

00:11:00.760 and we were headed to hell and incapable of participating in our saving at all.

00:11:06.720 So if we're totally dead, how did we get saved?

00:11:11.760 Well, that's what we're here to talk about today.

00:11:15.160 So according to the Bible, what happened was this.

00:11:19.040 In the same way that Jesus resurrected Lazarus, without his permission, by the way,

00:11:26.220 God spiritually resurrected you without your permission.

00:11:31.080 And this is what we call the born again experience.

00:11:35.260 And just like you had no choice in your physical birth, you had no choice in your spiritual birth.

00:11:42.700 God, as he promised in the old covenant to those who were included in the new covenant,

00:11:49.120 that he would take out your heart of stone and put into you a new heart of flesh where his law would be written upon it.

00:11:56.520 You can read that in Ezekiel 36, 26.

00:11:59.860 And this heart change, right?

00:12:01.680 The heart is the symbol of life.

00:12:02.900 This heart change is new life.

00:12:04.980 It's the new creation that's spoken of in the scriptures.

00:12:08.640 2 Corinthians 5.17 says,

00:12:10.980 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.

00:12:13.440 The old has passed away.

00:12:14.280 Behold, the new has come.

00:12:16.860 And like a baby cries out at their birth, you cried out to God at your second birth.

00:12:24.160 And this is why Romans 8.15 says,

00:12:27.140 but you have received the spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry, Abba, Father. Okay. You're

00:12:36.160 crying out, God, Father. Okay. Now, when it says you received the spirit, imagine me having a

00:12:42.840 football and putting it into your chest. It's not that you received it. Like I'm saying, yes,

00:12:48.660 I'm receiving it. No, it's like I gave, God gave it to you, or I gave you the football and you

00:12:53.540 received it. Um, you've received the spirit of adoption as sons, but whom, by whom we cry out,

00:13:00.620 Abba father. And you cry out because your new heart that was given to you in your spiritual

00:13:07.820 resurrection has immediately made you aware of your sin and genuine, um, made you aware of your

00:13:14.960 sin and, and genuine repentance and saving faith begin to pour out of you. Uh, basically you're

00:13:22.400 aware for the first time ever that you can't stand before God and be found righteous. You must

00:13:29.540 instead trust in Christ alone to be your righteousness, to earn that righteous verdict

00:13:36.180 on the day of judgment. And when this occurs, which all happens very quickly and simultaneously,

00:13:41.700 and, you know, that's another theological discussion. But at this point, you're justified.

00:13:47.240 And this is, you know, when we think about it from a forensic level or a legal matter,

00:13:52.100 right, you're justified in the court case of being found righteous before God.

00:13:55.840 And this is what Romans 8.30 says.

00:13:59.560 And those whom he predestined, he also called.

00:14:03.080 And those whom he called, he also justified.

00:14:06.060 And those whom he justified, he also glorified.

00:14:08.900 This is called the golden chain in theology circles.

00:14:13.380 When we hear the word called, think of Jesus in John 11 saying to Lazarus, he says, Lazarus,

00:14:23.040 come out, right?

00:14:24.940 Now combine that statement of Jesus calling with Romans 10, 17 that says, so faith comes

00:14:35.140 by hearing and hearing through the word of Christ.

00:14:38.680 So when preachers preach the word of Christ, which is the gospel, it's kind of like your

00:14:44.880 mouth as a preacher becomes the word of Christ, right?

00:14:48.440 You're sharing the gospel, the word of Christ.

00:14:50.640 And his sheep, like Lazarus, come to him, right?

00:14:55.960 And they hear his voice, as it says, right?

00:14:58.860 This confirms, again, yeah, what I just read in John 10, 27.

00:15:03.980 I'll read it to you again.

00:15:04.640 It says, my sheep, they hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.

00:15:09.940 They come to him, and they follow him.

00:15:12.860 Essentially, what I'm telling you here is this.

00:15:15.760 You did not exercise saving faith and genuine repentance that led you to being born again.

00:15:25.760 No, it's backwards.

00:15:27.240 You were spiritually dead, incapable of seeking God.

00:15:30.180 In fact, if you can exercise saving faith and genuine repentance without first being

00:15:38.080 born again, why do you need to be born again, right?

00:15:42.240 You just secured eternal life through faith, right?

00:15:45.560 It just doesn't make sense logically.

00:15:47.360 Let me explain it another way.

00:15:49.020 You can't exercise spiritual actions before being spiritually born, okay?

00:15:56.760 genuine repentance and saving faith are spiritual actions, and they can't be carried out by

00:16:02.600 spiritually dead people. And so what this leads us to is this, while we may have thought that we

00:16:10.360 chose God, you know, in the same way that that child thought that he chose to go to the park,

00:16:16.240 we didn't, right? God chose you before the foundations of the world, that's what it says

00:16:21.920 in Ephesians. And because he chose you, he predestined you. Because he predestined you,

00:16:31.000 he called you in that gospel hearing moment, and he called you to life. And in that moment,

00:16:37.400 he gave you that new heart like he promised, with the ability to exercise saving faith and

00:16:42.540 genuine repentance from that new source of life. And through this faith, he justified you by

00:16:48.140 Christ's righteousness. And because you are his son or daughter, he will keep you saved forever.

00:16:56.540 And if you've heard the song, he will hold you fast. It's a really beautiful song, really

00:17:01.320 beautiful lyrics. But this is how Jesus in John 10, 28 can say, I give them eternal life and they

00:17:07.340 will never perish and no one will snatch them out of my hand. So think about that. Can you promise

00:17:13.360 eternal life to somebody if you can lose your salvation? I don't think so. And he says right

00:17:19.080 here, Jesus says, and they will never perish. Never. It's a powerful, powerful promise right

00:17:27.420 there. So Tyler, to answer your question, I would say is no, you didn't choose Christ. Christ chose

00:17:35.700 you. And this is the very definition of grace, is that you didn't choose it and you were saved

00:17:43.240 anyways. If you chose it, then it's not grace. It's synergistic decision-making. I saw a really

00:17:50.860 good opportunity. I chose it. You know, good business deal. Christ, you do some saving. I'll

00:17:56.360 do some obeying, and we're going to do this thing, and we're going to run the race to the end.

00:18:00.620 But that's not what happened. Grace is the fact that you had no chance of saving yourself,

00:18:07.940 and God came and saved you.

00:18:11.120 And this is how we can say salvation is of the Lord,

00:18:13.940 that's what it says in the Psalms.

00:18:15.660 We didn't participate in our saving

00:18:17.880 and we do not participate in our keeping.

00:18:20.440 And because we are not the savior, right?

00:18:24.940 It's Christ who does all the saving.

00:18:28.240 And he's the author and the finisher of our faith,

00:18:31.620 as it says in Hebrews.

00:18:32.940 It's him who began that good work in us

00:18:35.380 and we'll finish it in the day of Jesus Christ,

00:18:37.340 as it says in Philippians. And so to him, be the glory forever and ever. Amen. You can say that

00:18:43.020 to him, be the glory. Everything, your entire journey with Christ is all give the glory to

00:18:48.640 Christ. Now, I know I'm about to close up right here, but I do want to put a quick asterisk here.

00:18:55.500 Not everyone's salvation story might be this linear in terms of you can see those specific

00:19:01.120 of clear moments. In fact, mine wasn't that linear. But regardless of variation and timing

00:19:09.740 of all these elements, all these elements will occur according to scripture, and they will

00:19:15.840 occur in a certain order. So don't worry if you're comparing your story to this and coming up

00:19:23.720 confused. A really good resource, I'm going to leave you guys with two resources that you guys

00:19:27.900 can actually find on the post page for this episode. And you can just go to relearn.org.

00:19:33.520 This is episode 108 titled, Did I Choose God or Did God Choose Me? A really great book for you to

00:19:40.720 read that is a biblical and scriptural breakdown of this gospel doctrine. It's by R.C. Sproul,

00:19:48.020 and it's called Chosen by God. And we linked it up there. It's a blue book with, there's two

00:19:54.760 versions of it. But the newer version is the blue book with a cross on the cover of it. And then a

00:20:00.780 video by John Piper that's titled God chose you before you chose him. And he gives a short one or

00:20:07.140 two minute message about that idea. Hopefully that was helpful for you guys. If you guys are

00:20:12.800 a regular listener, would you guys consider leaving a review for the show? You don't even

00:20:16.060 need to tap the stars or sorry, you don't even need to write anything. You just need to tap the

00:20:19.240 stars. And that would be a blessing for us. It really does help the exposure of the show.

00:20:24.760 And more people continue to hear about our ministry because of the great reviews, and they're so encouraging to us.

00:20:33.500 That's it for today.

00:20:34.500 My name is Dale Partridge, and we will see you guys next week.

00:20:38.380 Take care.

00:20:41.400 Thank you for listening to this episode of Real Christianity.

00:20:44.360 If you're a regular listener to this show, would you prayerfully consider making a donation to support our ministry efforts?

00:20:50.280 Simply visit relearn.org forward slash donate.

00:20:53.320 Again, that's relearn.org forward slash donate.

00:20:57.280 And for those looking to explore the idea of joining or planting a church in your home,

00:21:00.900 you can download our free PDF ebook titled The Basics of Biblical House Church by visiting relearn.org forward slash house.

00:21:08.600 Lastly, do you have a theological question you would like answered on the show?

00:21:12.540 Submit your question at relearn.org forward slash question.

00:21:16.320 Thanks for joining us on this episode of Real Christianity.

00:21:18.980 We'll see you next Wednesday.

00:21:23.320 You

Dale Partridge - August 26, 2020

Real Christianity #108： Did I Choose God or Did God Choose Me？

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